Talk:Ukrainian phonology/Archive 1

Archive 1

Table layout

Someone compress the table... Does anyone know how to make different color links? These are the phonemes, but to put the allophones it would be nice to link to them, but in a different color text

Also, my references are Ivan Zilyns'kyj "A Phonetic Description of the Ukrainian Language" and Tonia Bilous "Ukranian IPA" http://www.vesna.org.ua/txt/mov.html

I need to look up the format for references

I plan on adding more stuff along with text

-Iopq 14:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I did some of it myself I'll add some more stuff and more references -Iopq 03:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

rʲ phoneme

Just found this; good work. I don't think it's possible to change link colour in Wikipedia.

I don't think [rʲ] is a Ukrainian phoneme. Without that one, I count 36 phonemes listed on this page. /j/ seems to be missing, but I'm not sure where that fits in. One more? —Michael Z. 2005-12-2 06:56 Z

I've just gone through the alphabet about ten times, and I can't think of the 38th phoneme. Maybe there's just 37? —Michael Z. 2005-12-2 07:53 Z

буряк :D there's your [rʲ] I should also add the й phoneme, but it's more of a non-syllabic i than [j] -Iopq 01:25, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate how a native speaker may have a hard time analyzing phonetics which are intuitive. But I still don't perceive a change in the [r] there—my whole life I thought I was saying бурак. A Lviv trait inherited from my mother?

The й /j/ seems to me to be a recognized phoneme, so I would add it. —Michael Z. 2005-12-3 17:10 Z

I added it as a non-syllabic i. That's what Zilyns'kyj described it as. As for бурак that's something dependent on the dialect of the speaker. It is also mentioned in Zilyns'kyj's book. -Iopq 01:58, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

There's also ряд... How do YOU tell between ряд and рад (from рада)? Other than the context of course -Iopq 22:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Ряд sounds similar to бур’ян to me, although both the [r] and [a] seem slightly longer in the first, because of their context.

How do we describe the difference between the "semi-palatals" and the "palatals" in Ukrainian? It seems that the first are just incidentally and subtly modified by the transition to the following vowel, but the second are a qualitatively different articulation from their corresponding unpalatalized consonants. Are these equivalent to the "process" and "phonetic description" described at the very beginning of Palatalization? —Michael Z. 2005-12-5 23:11 Z

The semi-palatals are more like the process in the palatalization page. Every consonant in Ukrainian has a semi-palatal allophone (except for й), but only some have a palatalized phoneme equivalent. Note that the palatalized consonants are different from palatal consonants. Palatal consonant cannot be palatalized because that would be an oxymoron anyway :) and as we get closer to the palate we see less distinction between semi-palatalized versions and non-palatalized versions of the phonemes. Thus, шість and шостий have less of a difference in pronunciation than сік and соку. й can't even have a palatalized version because it's already palatal. -Iopq 00:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

-Тоня Білоус 13:34, 21 December 2005

Візьмемо пари слів "пряти"/"прати", "рядити"/"радити". Тут "р" та "рь", фонеми тверда та пом'якшена відіграють смислорозрізнювальну роль. Якщо взяти напівпом'якшені, то вони грають роль не смислорозрізнювальну, а більше акустичну. Якщо взяти пари слів "бити"/"біти", "мити"/"міти" смислорозрізрювальню роль виконують вже голосні "и" та "і", а не тверде "б" чи його напівпом'якшений алофон.

В українській мові 32 приголосні фонеми: твердих - 22, "й" - напів-приголосний та 9 м'яких. А також 6 голосних. В сумі - 38 основних фонем.

ʋ

Dear author

In Standard Ukrainian the sound represented by the letter в, is a bilabial sonorant in any position and not a labiodental one. S. uk:Зображення:Ukrainian consonants.jpg

Regards

62.194.8.235 12:36, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I really don't know which one is correct. I had bilabial approximant before, but then Tonia Bilous emailed me to change it. Until this is decided one way or another I don't feel it would be productive to keep changing it. Preferrably this should be "Standard Ukrainian" pronunciation.

-Тоня Білоус 13:15, 21 December 2005

Мені відомі найпоширеніші розбіжності в класифікації українського "в" в різних позиціях. Я вивчила більшість слушних класифікацій, виявила безліч помилок, відома мені й таблиця, на яку Ви посилаєтесь, але й розбіжності в тлумаченнях до неї, де в таблиці стверджується, що "в" губний сонорний, а в роз'ясненні до неї описують його вже як губно-зубний сонорний перед "і, и, е, а". Під час порівняльної роботи усіх матеріалів я приймала також до уваги подібні звуки в польській, англійській, нідерландській, фламандській та російській. В своїй роботі я спробувала звести кінці з кінцями.

Ще раз спробую пояснити.

Головна розбіжність, чи є український звук сонорним (апроксимантом згідно IPA) чи шумним. Однозначно сонорним, тобто апроксимантом - голос превалює над шумом. В цьому його відмінність від шумного російського, польського, чи англійського, які позначаються латинською [v]. Українська мова загалом більш сонорна в порівнянні з цими мовами.

Наступна розбіжність, чи є "в" губно-губним чи губно-зубним. Я родом з Черкащини, володію гарною літературною вимовою (хоча я вчилась в Одесі на романо-германському факультеті, це ніяк не вплинуло на мою вимову, там узагалі українська не була мовою навчання). Моя збірна родина з Київщини, Житомирщини, Вінничини. Виходячи з вимови, поширеної в цих регіонах - Центральній Україні, - "в" - губно-зубний апроксимант, який і подається в таблиці як [ ʋ ] згідно IPA позначення. Саме так я його класифікую як головний вияв фонеми "в" у своїх таблицях. Відповідно його алофонами є губно-губний апроксимант [w] та напів-голосний "у". В таблицях я подала їх IPA символи.

Щодо реальної мовної ситуації в Україні, яка ж вимова поширеніша для цього звуку? Піді впливом російської мови та на кордонах з Польщею, Росією, на Півдні вимовляють шумний [v]. Можливо, що є регіони (але я на практиці там не була, а тому і не чула), де вимовляють у всіх позиціях губно-губний апроксимант "в" [w], як то "каwа", а не лише перед огубленими "wулик, wоша", як в Центральній Україні.

Отже, виходячи з цього можна говорити про три різні школи/підходи класифікації українського "в" : Центральну (Київську, Черкаську...), Східну/Південну/Північну (Харківську, Одеську...) та Західну (Львівську).

Центральна - "в" як губно-зубний апроксимант (сонорний)- [ ʋ ]. Його і його алофони я детально описала в своїх таблицях.

Західна, Східна, Південна - "в" як губно-зубний шумний [v].

Ймовірно, в якихось інших регіонах - губно-губний [w].

Наголошую, що особисто я притримуюсь класифікації "в" на базі вимови, поширеній в Центральній Україні, а отже, як губно-зубного апроксиманта [ʋ].

Ukrainian phonology

Михайле я не мовознавець і не спеціаліст з фонології, і подав свою точку зору спираючись на публікації фахівців з фонології. Тоня Білоус, у цій публікації [1] пише про відмінність між вимовою "в" в українській і російській мові. Також про це йдеться тут [2] і тут [3]. Всі зазначені джерела вказують, що це лабіальний звук, на відміну від Labio-dental в російській. Крім того на кінці слова, та після приголосних "в" звучить як [ў]. В білоруській мові для цього звука є окрема літера ў. В IPA вона передається як w. Але ще раз повторюю, що я не фахівець а лише опирався на праці Тоні Білоус. --Yakudza 20:07, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm no linguist either. I was going by the article in my Kubijovyc encyclopedia, which transcribes в as v in most places, ŭ "after a vowel but not followed by a vowel", and this is consistent with the Ukrainian I am accustomed to hearing (and with what you describe, too, I think). I quoted some of the relevant passages from the encyclopedia at talk:Ukrainian language#Phonetics.

—Michael Z. 2005-12-20 20:17 Z

Шановнi друзi, (як каже наш президент).

Ми можемо з повною впевненiстю сказати, що думки лiнгвiстiв з цього приводу рiзняться. Все що стосується України та української занадто полiтизовано, навiть лiнгвiстика. Але треба також застосовувати здоровий глузд (common sense), тобто прислухатись, як говорять диктори на телебаченнi та радiо центральних каналiв, де намагаються говорити не дiалектами, а так званою "класичною українською" (по аналогiї з Hochdeutsch). Там "В" звучить як V, i нiхто не каже "W" чи "Хвастiв."

В останнi роки дуже зрiс вплив захiдної школи в усiх гуманiтарних сферах. Це приводить к поширенню книжок, що вiдображають лише захiдний дiалект, навiть мабуть його варiанти. З цього приводу, ще раз рекомендую статтю з Української правди пiд назвою "Все ґеніяльне просто або українців можуть відучити розмовляти мовою Шевченка." --Irpen 21:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Лінгвістика не є політизованою, доки в неї не починають втручатись політики. Тоді і Сталін пише статті про мовознавство, і археологи очолюють мовознавчі комісії. Наведений вами приклад є досить показовим. Судячи з пошуку в Ґуґлі Ярослав Білик ніякий не мовознавець, а саме політикан - редактор доволі політично заангажованого інтернет-видання "Обозреватель", представник "жовтої" преси, посилатись на яку мабуть не варто в науковому обговоренні. До того ж тема його аж ніяк не стосується української фонології. Дискутувати з ним не хочу, тим більше на сторінках Української правди було декілька статей у відповідь але вже від фахівців.

Всі наведені мною вище лінки базуються на академічних виданнях, стосуються тільки правил літературної мови (діалекти то зовсім окрема річ). Автори також переважно зі Східної України. Тоня Білоус з Одеси, Сергій Вакуленко з Харкова. Видатний український мовознавець Юрій Шевельов - представник харківської школи. Якщо є в цьому питанні якісь суперечки, то вони носять суто науковий, а не політичний характер, і не потрібно зайве політизувати навіть це. Яка різниця звідки фахівець, якщо він з Москви чи Варшави то це хіба якось вплине на його кваліфікацію? До речі, подивіться на статтю Russian language або Russian phonology - вони на порядок вищі за аналогічні українські, тому що написані фахово і без політизації.

А от "здоровий глузд" застосовувати треба дуже обережно. Якщо в науці сподіватися тільки на здоровий глузд, то ми й досі вважали б, що Сонце обертається навколо Землі. Я не впевнений, що використовуючи його можна сказати, якою є та чи інша фонема лабіодентальною чи білабіальною. Для цього треба або бути фахівцем або витратити досить багато часу, щоб прочитати фахову літературу. До того ж, якщо володієш мовою, то ніколи не задумуєшся як це вимовляється. Прочитайте наприклад чудово статтю Russian phonology і скажіть чи відповідає написане там вашим попереднім уявленням про російську фонологію. --Yakudza 01:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I'm not quite clear on the question. It seems to me that in a broad, phonological transcription /v/ is the notation for the letter в in Ukrainian. In a purely phonological context, it doesn't matter whether it's actually pronounced [v], [ʋ], [w], [ʍ], [β] or something else—this varies from word to word, person to person, and place to place, but these are all allophones for /v/, and aren't considered in phonology.

It's only when we need a more precise phonetic transcription that we have to delve into the more detailed description:

From Yakudza's sources cited above:

* Bilous [ʋ], [ʋʲ], [w], or [ʍ]

* The graphic, if I translate correctly, says that в is a "hard labio-dental", I think that would be [v] or [ʋ] (not sure exactly what сокорна, щілинна, серединна means, some kind of central fricative)

Incorrect. It says bilabial fricative which would be β.

* Mova.info calls it a voiced (bi-?)labial fricative ("губна сонантна фрикативна", but not губно-зубна, "labio-dental") [β], I think

Anyway, it seems to me that this is all phonetics, and not phonology. It also tells me that phonetic notation is not hard science. These different sources are either using slightly different models for their phonetic notation, or are listening to different people. Bilous also analyzes the pronunciation in different contexts. If we want to describe the phonetics of Ukrainian speech in such detail, perhaps we should pick one source, and stick to its notation. If we want to analyze why they are different, we need to find a linguistics source that explains why they are so different.

Yet another question is whether the average or normal Ukrainian в is pronounced [v], [ʋ], [w], [ʍ], [β], etc., but it's still getting into the detail level of phonetics. Am I right (reminder: I'm no linguist)? —Michael Z. 2005-12-21 02:13 Z

This is mostly in response to Yakudza's entry, but I am posting it in the end, so we keep the order chronological. As for the entries in Ukrainian, due to an unfortunate lack of interest to Ukrainian topics at Wikipedia, it is unlikely that someone, who can't read Ukrainian will ever reach this page. So, it should not be a problem to use Ukrainian at talks. Still, I will continue in English. Yakudza, моя пропозицiя, щодо допомоги з перекладом не вiдмiняється. Пиши українською чи росiйською те що хочешь мати перекладеним. На цiй сторiцi можна спокiйно писати цими мовами в будь-якому разi. Нажаль, нiкого окрiм нас Україна не цiкавить :(.

Please, this is the English Wikipedia and I would appreciate it if you can write in English. I try to read as much of the talk page as seems relevant whenever I read an article, but doing this makes it a lot harder. —Felix the Cassowary 12:54, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

First, talking about Yellow press, your trying to contrast "УП" to "Обоз" doesn't look convinsing. They are both yellow and they both still sometimes run good articles. Read Mirror Weekly if you wan't something more solid. As for common sense, it is still rather important, especially in humanities. Your analogy with Sun and Earth doesn't really apply. In фiзика, математика, хiмiя (чи то хвiзика та хємiя за новiтнiми книжками?), the criteria to check a statement for whether it is true or false are much more transparent than in humanities. This is exactly why, the science in the Soviet times was much less corrupt than such fields like history and philosophy. Linguistics is also a humanitarian field. Besides, even in science the easiest thing to get nonsense is to forget the common sense (even these days!)

True, how Ukrainian "В" sounds can't be inferred from the common sense alone . Books help but so do ears. If what I hear is different from what I read, either one speaks (or writes) incorrectly, or one writes his/her wishful thinking, or the person who writes means a different dialect from the one used by the person that speaks (the most likely case). I hear "W" from local speaks in some Ukrainian areas but I also hear "V" in other areas and, most importantly, I hear "V" from professional speakers of the nation-wide broadcasting stations who are trained to speak the "classical Ukrainian", the Standard language variant.

In US, whether one watches the nationwide CNN or Fox News (depending on political preferences), the news anchors usually don't talk with Southern accent and BBC anchors don't speak Mid Ulster English. Of course, the variant on which the "Standard language" is based is usually closest to a particular dialect too (the General American of CNN/Fox is the closest to the dialect of the Midwest of the US and the BBC English is the closest to how people speak in the South of England). In Ukraine, the Standard language is considered the closest to the natural dialect of central Ukraine. If different books describe how people speak there differently, turn on your TV and listen to whatever all-Ukrainian channels available in your area, by air, cable or satellite. And, I emphasize, listen to the National stations, not the regional or diaspora ones. Otherwise, you would get some info that would help you to check some unwritten yet articles on particular Dialects of Ukrainian. If you are about to say that this is just my "personal observation" and they don't count, why don't you turn on your TV or Radio and check for yourself. Do you hear "WOWK" and "MOWA" and "HVASTIW"? --Irpen 04:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

--Тоня Білоус 13:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC) Справа не в фонетиці й фонології чи політизації мовних проблем. Справа в тому, що українська мова дійсно перебувала під насильницькою русифікацією й полонізацією і треба речі називати своїми іменами - насилля не є еволюційним шляхом розвитку мови. Треба брати до уваги й регіональні фактори: вимова відрізняється від регіону до регіону. Особисто я притримуюсь (читайте вище) класифікації на основі вимови в Центральній Україні, яка поширена в україномовних містечках (Умань, Теплик, Біла Церква, Гайсин, Тальне тощо) і селах і, що суттєво, найменше піддалась руйнівному впливові русифікації та полонізації. У великих містах - однозначно вплив російської мови, на Заході - польської.

Всі свої висновки я подала в таблицях на "Весні". Повторюсь. Я притримуюсь погляду, що "в" губно-зубний сонорний (апроксимант), [w] - алофон губно-губний апроксимант, та напів-приголосний "у". Звичайно в моєму виборі відіграв роль і суб'єктивний чинник. Так розмовляють в моєму реґіоні. Але я вбачаю і більшу природність в комбінації сонорна фонема/сонорний апроксимант (Центральна Україна), а не шумна фонема/сонорний апроксимант - фактично це артикуляційний російсько-український суржик.

Але треба визнати, що проблема артикуляційної відмінності лежить глибше і не торкається самої лише класифікації. Українська залишається мовою свідомої української меншини. І не має значення, вимовляють її представники шумний чи сонорний "в". Проблема у власне виживанні хоч якоїсь української вимови безвідносно від регіону.

who ever wrote this table of cosnonants on this artical dosnt realise [ʋ] is the symbol for a labiodental approximant and the bilabial equivelent is [β̞].

I correct table. Iin Ukrainian в is labiodental approximant, see References Tonia Bilous (Ukrainian IPA by Tonia Bilous, Весна, December 05, 2005, retrieved December 05, 2005 (Ukrainian language: UkrIPA.pdf, UkrIPA.doc)) --Yakudza 13:28, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanx bro

s/z phoneme

if [s] or [z] is dental then it is [θ] or [ð] not [s] or [z]

Changed it to denti-alveolar which they are-Iopq 11:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The real difference between [s] and [θ] is sibilant vs non-sibilant and not alveolar vs dental as IPA charts might suggest. That is, [s̪] and [θ̪] aren't the same thing. Pittmirg 17:35, 21 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pittmirg (talk • contribs)

Ukrainian д, т, л (if it is not palatalized, the hard, velarized allophone), н, з, с are dental - not alveolar - consonants. Just not apical but dorsal. Not interdental but dental.

--W.M.drossel (talk) 10:26, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

This is not technically true because the tongue makes contact with the alveolar ridge and the convention is to call consonants where the tongue touches the alveolar ridge alveolar. They are "denti-alveolar" because it also touches the base of the teeth, but that's more of a refinement. -iopq (talk) 05:02, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Wrong phonology

Warning! The table is largely derived from the paper "Ukrainian IPA" by Tonia Bilous as listed under the References heading and may be categorized as "original research". As can be seen from the link provided, Tonia's data have been mainly obtained through playing with the IPA tables. The references she cites as authoritative are actually primers for laymen, which make one doubt about her expertise. It is also evident from the text of the paper that the author's main business is separation of Ukrainian phonology from Russian phonology (Tonia is writing from Belgium) with no references to Polish and Belarusian languages (Tonia deliberately endowed standard Ukrainian pronunciation with phonemes ɕ and ʑ – those are not in the non-palatalized table presented in Wikipedia).

Therefore the reader should be warned that data presented on this page are inaccurate and have no academic foundation.

Bring please academic sources on acknowledgement of your words. Except work Tony exists much sources on Ukrainian on acknowledgement of this article. Please see the list of the sources in referens. --Yakudza 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Umm... this table is 99% from Zilyn'skyj's book. -Iopq 10:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the dispute tag unless you dispute actual accuracy of the article instead of its references. If you wish, you can remove the other reference since Zilyn'skyj's book is what I used to originally write this article. The only point I looked at in Tonia Bilous' paper was when writing the IPA symbol for the в letter because Zilyn'skyj doesn't use IPA, but a different system which I had to transcribe into IPA. -Iopq 10:22, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Why was this taken out?

The Ukrainian phonological system is distinct from both Russian and Polish sound systems. I understand that it is kind of obvious to people who deal with phonology, but the CURRENT text is MORE than just obvious, it is actually A DUPLICATION OF THE TEXT of the article. It's pretty much like saying "Ukrainian phonology" in the title and saying "This article is about Ukrainian phonology". You might as well write "Envelope" on an envelope. Furthermore, this statement was from Zilyns'kyj's book so I might have put a little reference after it, but I didn't. I think we should just find something more interesting to fit into that space. -iopq 15:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I took it out because it's too vague. If you've got a copy of Zilyns'kyj and it covers more than just the phonemes, maybe you can add some more information regarding phonological processes in Ukrainian. This page is horribly incomplete. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"This article deals with the phonology of the Ukrainian language." is not vague, but it's a waste of space. It is true that Zilyns'kyj describes a lot more, but he also describes the pronunciation of Rusyn and some phonological features that are really rare or lost at this point. I could only imagine who could possibly say "куонь" instead of "кінь". Probably Rusyn dialects in Slovakia. -iopq 22:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Correction, these are northern dialects. -iopq 06:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

и^е and е^и

as I know, there is the vowel и^е - /ɪ/ without accent and conformable for /e/. but there is no difference in this article. where is the truth? :) --Riwnodennyk 19:43, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Truth is out there :) In IPA I believe Raised and lowered diacritics should be used.
и^е=ɪ̞
е^и=ɛ̝
I believe article should sometimes contain information about such relative articulations that are marked in native Cyrillic transcription as superscripted letters.--Drundia 13:46, 12 June 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drundia (talk • contribs)

дс

How pronounce -дс-/-дсь- (like Скоропадський) in Standard Ukrainian? For example, [-ds-], [-ʣ-], or [-ʦ-] like in Russian and Polish -ds-..

Thanks.--122.17.179.225 (talk) 16:07, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Answer: -dz^j-

Combination д(ь), т(ь) + з(ь), (дз(ь)), с(ь), ц(ь), ж, (дж), ш(щ), ч pronounce as affricate ever. If there is voised consonant, then voised one, if there is soft consonant, then soft one, if there is postalveolar consonant, then postalveolar one.

2 dec 2009 --W.M.drossel (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

ш

Isn't "ш" pronounced as /ʂ/ like Russian "ш" or Polish "sz"? /ʃ/ stands for a softer sound - English "sh" or Czech, Croatian, etc. "š". --Atitarev (talk) 12:19, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's /ʃ/. With Polish and Russian there is some variation in the literature and numerous sources use /ʃ/ (contrasting it with /ɕ/ or "/ʃʲ/)"). I don't have it on hand, but I do believe that Silke Hamann's "Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages" in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association (2004) says explicitely that Russian and Polish are the only Slavic languages with the retroflex pronunciation.— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:16, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Upon glancing through it, it seems that the author is looking only at Polish, Russian, Czech, and Bulgarian. So I guess the jury's still out on this one. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:34, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Again, I only gave my personal view, as I am fairly familiar with the pronunciation of these 4 languages (maybe less with Bulgarian). I searched through the Russian sources on Ukrainian. I couldn't find anything describing Ukrainian "ш" as different from Russian "ш" or from Polish "sz", except for cases when the Ukrainian "ш" is palatalised (my example in talk:Sha - грошi). Well, Russian may have a palatalised "ш" as well in some foreign words, e.g. Шяуляй (Lithuanian: Šiauliai). If you ask a Ukrainian to say "шукай", you will here the same sound as in Russian "шуба" or Polish "szukaj".

Hopefully, we'll get some members with some sources. I really don't think the source just stating that Ukrainian "ш" is /ʃ/ would be sufficient, as the same symbol may be used mistakenly for Russian as well but we know it's not 100% correct.

Czech - yes, I agree, it has /ʃ/, not /ɕ/, identical to English "sh" in "shoes".

Belarusian phonology should be added to the list, similarly to Polish, distinguishing "ш" and "сь" (Łacinka: "sz" and "ś") is very important in Belarusian, although Belarusian "ś" is not pronounced as Polish "ś" but as a palatalised /sʲ/.

--Atitarev (talk) 02:06, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Stress

How is the word stress in Ukrainian? Is it free like in Bulgarian or Russian? or fixed like in Czech or Polish? Marxolang (talk) 03:59, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I believe it is free, or lexically specified, but I don't have a source for that. Quantumelfmage (talk) 17:44, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It is free. In wordbuilding stress stay in position where it were, or go to new element added. Some words have different stress in singular and plural, in perfect and imperfect etc. Certain words differ only by stress: образ'и (icons), обр'ази (injuries), 'образи(images).

2 dec 2009 --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Сучасна учасна українська мова : Довідник

Back in April, an anon user changed the article to indicate that Ukrainian postalveolars are retroflex (as in Russian) and that the labial approximant is bilabial rather than labiodental. When prompted for a source, the anon gave ISBN 5-325-00178-7 (page 38). It took a while for me to figure this out, since it's a pretty incomplete citation. I believe it is Сучасна українська мова : Довідник by Шевченко Л.Ю., Різун В.В., Лисенко Ю.В. from 1993. Crude robot translators tell me that this is The Modern Ukrainian Language: a Reference. But I don't have access to this book so I did the next best thing. I went to my own library and checked out A Phonetic Description of the Ukrainian Language by Ivan Zilyns'kyj (1979).

Zilyns'kyj is pretty clear about the consonant represented by <в>; while there is some variation, educated speakers pronounce it just like with Russian except after vowels when it is u̯. What he labels as a "bilabial articulation" he transcribes as w and says that it "cannot be precisely distinguished from u̯ either in its acoustics or its articulation." (p 81). So, in short, nonstandard dialects have [w] (not [β̞]), though [v~ ʋ] is also possible, especially in standard speech.

He's less clear about the postalveoalars. His transcription system includes Predorsal soft dental (s', z'); Predorsal hard alveolar (š, ž); predorsal soft alveolar (š', ž'), which he calls "half hissing, half hushing" (110); and dorsal palatal soft (ś ź), identical to Polish ciszący ś ź [ɕ ʑ], respectively.

If I were to take a guess, I'd say that s' is [sʲ], š is [ʂ] and š' is [ʃ]. Here's the description for š and ž

"...the articulating front part of the tongue forms the constriction at a point on the roof of the mouth which is not the point which lies exactly opposite to it when the tongue is at rest; rather it is adjacent to the vis-à-vis point; at the same time, a special resonator, a Kesselraum, is formed, causing the stridency that is characteristic for sounds of the type š." (p 106)

He says of his own western educated pronunciation has a "constriction formed by the raised tip of the tongue... and the gums, is somewhat wider and larger than in s, z. Because of this, the airstream striking the lower teeth is relatively wide and thus causes the hushing that is characteristic of sounds of the type š ž..." (p 107) He also says that there are dialectal and idiolectal variants that are more front and more back than this.

So it's not clear to me what's typical for <ш ж> or how these sounds are distributed. I'll continue to look through Zilyns'kyj's book, but if someone has Сучасна учасна українська мова, maybe they can quote from it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:28, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think your guess that "s' is [sʲ], š is [ʂ] and š' is [ʃ]" is rather correct than not. Acoustically partially palatalized post-alveolar fricatives are probably most distinguishable partially palatalized allophones in Ukrainian languange. They are also more common in native words, but they are for some reasons are nearly absent in loanwords. As it comes to phonematic transcription (rather than phonetic) it may be better to use /ʃ ʒ/ because they are more easily visually distinguished from /s z/ than /ʂ ʐ/. I believe such changes in phonematic transcriptions are done quite often. Sound represented by <в> is considered sonorant, in native phonetic transcription using Cyrillic scripts it is normally represented as /в/ when followed by a vowel, and as /ў/ otherwise, so they likely have some acoustic difference, though in my experience it's extremely low. I think anything which is bilabial or labiodental voiced fricative or approximant may be a good guess, as it highly varies in the way it is pronounced for example in television and radio.--Drundia (talk) 14:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that variation might be an important thing to consider. There are few examples written in actual cyrillic that I can find and they might be dialectal pronunciations (I'll have to take a closer look). It seems that the alveolopalatal consonants are potential realizations of palatalized dentals and the retroflex as potential realizations of postalveolar consonants. [ˈʑiɲkɑ] Зінька, [ˈʒinkɑ] Жінка. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:42, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

[ʑ] for /zʲ/ is very rare if it exists at all. Native phonetic transcription differentiates soft and half-soft consonants, for example кінець - [к’інец`] - /kiˈnɛt͡sʲ/. /k/ here slightly leans towards [kʲ], but it's closer to [k] than [kʲ], while /i/ slightly leans towards [ɪ] because it's not stressed and follows hard consonant. --Drundia (talk) 02:35, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

He's pretty clear that ź is the same as in Polish. Here's what he says:

One usually hears lightly softened s, z in eastern received and folk pronunciation, and sometimes in the Polissian dialect; it also appears in Bukovinian, Pokuttian, hucul, Boikian, eastern Lemkian, and eastern Transcarpathian dialects. But, besides the sporadic use of s', z', Volhynian, Pidljaššjan, and Xolm dialects often have more strongly palatalied variants. And, the farther west one goes, the more frequently does one see these variants change slowly into another category of soft sounds, which one could include among the true "palatal" consonants ś, ź./"Palatal" ś, ź or dorso-palatals, are close to the Polish ciszący ś, ź and, in some western dialects, are even identical to them.

So, according to Zilyns'kyj, [ʑ] was indeed a potential realization of /zʲ/ though it seems as though what we have is a 1979 English translation of a work written before WWII. It could indeed be outdated. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:51, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Western Ukraine before WWII was a part of Poland so it could be influenced by Polish language this way. It's quite some time, and also television and radio helps to reduce the difference between dialects. The most common dialectic pronuncication is [xw], [x] for /f/, though recently I heard some people pronouncing [f] for /hw/. In articles about Ukrainian dialects in Ukrainian Wikipedia uk:Українська_діалектологія [xw] or [x] for /f/ is most common, but looking fast I didn't find anything that can be considered as pronouncing [ʑ] for /zʲ/. --Drundia (talk) 16:48, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

So I've read Hamann's article claiming that and explaining why Russian and Polish postalveolars are retroflexes. However I don't find any of his criteria holding true as it comes to Ukrainian language. Also the possibility in Ukrainian language to mistaken unstressed <и—е> suggests that <е> is likely to represent closer vowel than article presently lists ([e] instead of [ɛ]), I consider that they have to be articulated in a very similar manner to be misarticulated in a fast speech. Hamann suggests that retroflex fricatives affect nearby vowels by lowering them, backening them, or rounding them, while Ukrainian (assuming [e]) has 3 relatively front and relatively close vowels, none of which is rounded, and they are also fairly common around postalveolars.
Hamann's research on Czech language showed two distinct figures, one suggested palatoalveolar, other suggested retroflex, and he called it a new discovery, similarly, Russian and Polish may have different kinds of articulation for different speakers. While my pronuncication may not be perfect, as can't be my measurements of my tongue shape and position (though I tried what I could), as a native speaker I'm quite sure I don't use retroflex articulation.
Lastly the book "Сучасна українська мова: Довідник" may be worth checking, but I doubt it contains a classification, different from commonly used in Ukrainian literature, where consonants are divided in four groups based on place of articulation: labial (губні м, в, б, п, ф), dental (зубні н, л, д, дз, з, т, ц, с), front palatal (передньопіднебінні р, й, дж, ж, ч, ш), velar/back-mouth (задньоязикові/задньоротові ґ, г, к, х) - not a smallest hint for retroflex articulation. --Drundia (talk) 00:56, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Yakudza restored uk:Зображення:Ukrainian consonants.jpg which is a table of consonants from this book. All it says about Ukrainian postalveolar fricatives is that they are "coronal fricatives". Reading book may be necessary to find more detailed classification. So far still nothing suggesting or denying retroflex articulation. --Drundia (talk) 15:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad that you're taking some attention to this article, Drundia, but do you have sources for your statements? I hate to see a bunch of unreferenced material in the article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's all pulled right from my memory, but coincidently I have a nice book here that contains most of that information. That book is ISBN 966-04-0078-0 "Практикум з правопису української мови" by Іван Пилипович Ющук. That's more about grammar, but as I said he mentions most of phonological details I wrote about, also with notes when orphography follows phonology and when it doesn't, and small research indicates that author is rather reliable source than not. Then there is small amount of information that may need other sources, or at least some reformatting to have less than everything in one pile. --Drundia (talk) 03:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I figured as much. If you have trouble with inline citations, give it your best shot and I should be able to help fix any coding mistakes. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Note taken from article

It may retain place of articulation, that way it's [h], from what I remember [x]~[h] are allophones of /x/ and [ɣ]~[ɦ] are allophones of /ɦ/. My source identifies phoneme and yes [x] is Relative_articulation#Advanced relative to [ɦ]

I'm moving this here, since this is a comment worth discussing (albeit briefly). [h] and [ɦ] are typically sounds with no place of articulation, despite their position in the consonant chart. If there's a relationship between velar and glottal fricatives, it's easier to describe it the other way. That is, a velar sound debuccalizes or loses its oral constriction. If there's velar-glottal allophony, I'd like to see that developed. Would it be unbecoming of us to represent both fricatives as velar? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:52, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

While /x/-/ɦ/ are generally considered to form voiceless-voiced pair, it is also fairly common to see them classified as different by place of articulation ("no place" is a place different from any "real place"). Both "glottal" and "pharyngeal" (possibly in broader sense mentioned in Radical consonant) terms are used. Voicing of /x/ is exclusive (or nearly exclusive) to word boundaries, and maybe debuccalizes there, devoicing of /ɦ/ occurs in a few words, so voice assimilation for these consonants is a marginal process and [h] and [ɣ] are marginal sounds (if they exist) to distinguish them as separate phonemes. I believe currently used /ɦ/ is based on some reliable sources, and according to some less reliable source (me as native speaker) wherever voiceless <х> is articulated, its so-called voiced counterpart <г> isn't articulated there. --Drundia (talk) 22:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I like this note because now we can describe any change from /ɦ/ to [x] as "devoicing." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:32, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I move some text from previous part. г is described in any ukrainian sources as voised, as i know, never breathy-voiced. What you think about. --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:05, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Citation requests

Let's address edit summaries like this by making claims like this backed up by inline citations. I've provided the places they should be]. Russian phonology is an example of my standard for citations. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Works by Shevelov are good idea. And because he lived and worked in US for quite a while they are likely available in English language (probably written in English in the first place). He wrote a lot about everything. I guess sources in English are good idea for English Wikipedia. --Drundia (talk) 13:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

They're only preferable because not all editors can read Ukrainian. If a Uk. source says something that can't be found in English-language sources, it's perfectly fine to use it. If anybody questions the information, the talk page can be used to quote the relevent paragraph(s) and translate them for more readers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

г

There is wrong IPA symboll for г: [ɦ], while it must be [ʕ]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.207.105.6 (talk • contribs)

I've never heard of that. You got a source? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:19, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

No i do not. Большая Советская Энциклопедия tell

Фарингальные согласные (от греч. pharynx, родительный падеж pharyngos – глотка), глоточные, разновидность согласных, образуемых в полости глотки в результате сокращения верхнего или нижнего констриктора (особых мышц на задней стенке глотки) и оттягивания назад корня языка. Различаются смычные и щелевые Ф. с. Свойственны араб. и некоторым даг. языкам; глухой щелевой Ф. с. есть в немецком (h), звонкий – в украинском (г).

Гортанные согласные, согласные звуки, образующиеся в гортани. Воздушная струя, проходя через голосовую щель, встречает препятствие в виде сомкнутых или сближенных (но ненапряжённых) голосовых связок и, преодолевая его, даёт шум, определяемый как Г. с. При наличии смычки образуется смычный Г. с., называемый гортанным взрывом, например в грузинском языке п|, т|, к|. При наличии щели образуется слабый шум трения, который определяется как гортанный щелевой согласный шум (фарингальный Г. с., например, немецкое h в начале слова). Иногда термин «Г. с.» употребляют и для обозначения увулярных, заднеязычных (задненёбных) и даже среднеязычных (средненёбных) согласных (см. Согласные).

Ларингальные согласные (от греч. larynx — гортань), согласные, артикулируемые (в узком смысле) голосовыми связками (например, гортанная смычка 'uh) или (в широком смысле) органами речи, расположенными в зеве и гортани (например, арабское h). См. Согласные.

so

1. ukrainian г is pharyngeal,
2. under termin "laryngeal" can be not only laryngeal in fact, but epiglottal, pharyngeal and even velar consonant.

Actually i think articulation of г is something like pharyngo-laryngeal. Otorhynolaryngeal - hi-hi. Do you know any rontgenological researches for understanding what realy be happen when man say г?

2 dec 2009 --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't speak Ukrainian. Care to translate? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please translate it, somebody! Sorry, myself don't speak English. The quote is in Russian, of course. And please, orthostatize my plagiographic.

--W.M.drossel (talk) 09:50, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, Russian, well there are online translators. Here, with some modification, is what babelfish gives.Russian speakers, feel free to modify this translation for the benefit of monolingual anglophones.

Pharyngeal consonants (from the Greek. pharynx, the genitive case of pharyngos - throat), throaty, the variety of the consonants, formed in the cavity of the throat as a result of the reduction of upper or lower constrictor (special muscles on the rear wall of the throat) and drawing out the back of the tongue root. They are distinguished occlusive and slit fricatives. they are characteristic of Arabic and certain Dagestanian languages; a voiceless slit fricative exists in German (h), a voiced one in Ukrainian (g). Guttural consonants, consonant sounds that are formed in the larynx. Air jet, penetrating the glottis, meets the obstacle of in the form enclosed or contiguous (but slack) vocal chords and, coming over it, creates noise, defined as guttural consonants with the presence of union it is formed occlusive guttural consonants, called guttural explosion, for example in the Georgian language pʼ, tʼ, kʼ [ejectives]. With the presence of a slot is formed weak noise of friction, which is defined as guttural slit agreeable noise (pharyngeal guttural consonants, for example, German h at the beginning of word). Sometimes the term “guttural” is used also for the designation of the uvular, velar and even medio-lingual (mediopalatal) consonants. Laryngal consonants (from the Greek. larynx - larynx), the consonants, articulated (in the narrow sense) by vocal chords (for example, the guttural union of ' uh) or (in the broad sense) by the organs of speech, located in the pharynx and larynx (e.g Arabic h).

It sounds a lot like the author here is saying that the German and Ukrainian sounds are equivalent except for Ukrainian's "ringing", probably voiced nature and that they are grouping glottal, epiglottal, and pharyngeal consonants. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:34, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Such grouping is characteristic of slavicists. They don't differ the velar, velo-pharingeal, constricted-pharingeal, epiglotto-pharingeal, ventricular consonants, all those are throaty. So it isn't so easy to translate with Ukrainian terms, which are not used. I see that main meaning of the term "pharingeal" (here in Wikipedia) is "epiglotto-pharingeal" and this term often use instead of "epiglottal", some mess. Ukrainian г, i believe, not epiglottal pharingeal, but because debuccalization it is difficult to understand exactly. Is somebody knowing Dagestanian languages? There was incomprehensible "Свойственны некоторым даг. языкам" that means "characteristic of certain Dagestanian languages" in quote. It is interesting to compare Ukrainian and Lezgian... --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:05, 8 December 2009 (UTC) (edited)

Well, our article on Lezgi language has a few related consonants /ʁ ʁʷ χ h/. However, perhaps what is being referred to is a "prosody of pharyngealization" (a quote from Catford, 2001, in JIPA) in e.g. Tsakhur and Udi that affects both consonants and vowels. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:07, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Uhm, what is prosody of pharyngealization? --Drundia (talk) 23:14, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Wah! I just see (Л. Ю. Шевченко, В. В. Різун, Ю. В. Лисенко (1993)). Here г classified as pharyngeal. Why nobody told me about earlier? Should I translate this table? --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:37, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't you just say that slavicists use "pharyngeal" to mean "guttural"? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I still don't know, what they mean! --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:27, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• Uhm, first it was glottal. And they mentioned specifics of its phonation ("broad vibration" in two words), actually they didn't mention anything else. Then all of a sudden they took out of somewhere that "pharyngeal" word, though they still were telling that it's pretty much the same as Czech and Slovak sounds, or that it's just a voiced conterpart for English or German one. They also mention that position of speech organs depends on the following sound, and some narrowing of pharynx due to retraction of tongue root. Though a velar evolving into pharyngeal(ized?) breathy voiced consonant sounds a bit weird. --Drundia (talk) 23:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Now I know what they mean. "Consonant г. Apix glossis kept near the lower teeth during articulation of isolated sound. The position of the tongue is defined by next sound. Lips slightly stretched. There is convergence of back wall of the pharynx and root of the tongue. Vocal cords vibrate. Airflow quickly and sharply passes through the pharynx. "

Сучасна українська мова : Підручник / Пономарів О. Д., Різун В. В., Шевченко Л. Ю. та ін.; за ред. Пономарева О. Д. — вид.2-ге —К. : Либідь , 2001 — 400 с. — ISBN 966-06-0173-5

--W.M.drossel (talk) 08:37, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

• The offical Ukrainian orthography (Ukrains'ky Pravopys, Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 2012, p. 19, see e-text or pdf-text) is the most reliable source in this case. It describes this standard Ukrainian sound «г» as «гортанний щілинний приголосний» ("laryngeal fricative consonant"), not «глотковий» ("pharyngeal"). It is a classification problem, when Scherba classification of consonants mixed with IPA classification. Ukrainian sound «г» is nearly the same as Czech and Slovak sounds. Maksym Ye. (talk) 17:25, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

As your source is the 2012 publication by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, I would take it to be a far superior source to the guesswork above, albeit educated guesswork. Thank you for qualifying the phoneme, Maksym Ye.. The relationship to the pronunciation of "Praha" (Prague) is as close a correlation to the Ukrainian "г" as I can think of. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 00:47, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

It is known error. Any book (pardon, "any" means something like ISBN 966-7492-19-2 or ISBN 966-580-217-8 or Мельничук А.С. Историческая типология славянских языков. Фонетика, слообразование, лексика и фразеология. Київ: Наукова думка, 1986) about ukrainian phonology (not orthography) describes ukrainian г as pharyngeal. Notable, that is an exclusive property of ukrainian, as central zone of gh-slavic-belt (with h in czech, ɣ in belarusian and southern russian, oppositing g around, in northern: russian, polish, lower-sorbian as well as southern, primarily bulgarian).--178.158.194.61 (talk) 11:20, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Vowels

There is table after Wikipedia Formant and after Тоцька(1973), see bibliography (unfortunately i don't have that book now), and after John P. Cater (1983) "Electronical Speaking: Computer Speech Generation", Indianapolis: Howard W. Sams & Co., Inc..

Formant freq., Hz

Vowel	F1	F2	Main formant region
u	320	800	200..400
o	500	1000	400..600
ɑ	700	1150	..
a	1000	1400	800..1200
ø	500	1500	..
y	320	1650	..
ɛ	700	1800	..
e	500	2300	400.600et2200.2600
i	320	800	200..400et3000..3500
а	600	1200.1300	200..400
о	300..400	600..700	250..800
ое	..	up to 1100	..
у	200..250	400..600	200..800
е	400..500	1500	200..1100et1300..1400
еи	down to 300	..	..
и	230	1800	200..500et1800..3200
ие	up to 500	down to 1400	..
і	200	2000..2400	200..500et2000..4000
іи	"	down to 1800	..
æ	700	1800	..
ʌ	775	1100	..
ɔ	575	900	..
u	425	1000	..
uː	275	850	..

Sorry, that's my working records, not precisive copy of authentic source, but i sure all right.

N.B.

1. There is no difference between /æ/ and /ɛ/ here. It is somewhere else (strength of fofmants, higher frequencies etc).
2. Didn't you know that Ukraine is a country of giants? Scale data for comparation.

So, I want to tell that ukrainian o is realy close-mid sound. I absolutly can't understand why it must be [ɔ]. --W.M.drossel (talk) 12:10, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The justification for using [ɔ] is to distinguish it from a near-close allophone in narrow transcription. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:36, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

In narrow transcription surely yes! In Ukrainian there are allophones [ʊ] зозуля and even [ɒ] поганий (I don't know exactly, aren't?). But main phoneme symbol, if there is only one phoneme, is /o/? --W.M.drossel (talk) 11:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't say it was a good justification. I don't oppose a change in the article to /o/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:41, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

OK!
*There was an error in my table, you know, latin e and cyrillic u is the same key on keyboard. So that о^е (not о^у as I have written) is allophone that apears between front-lingual consonants. --W.M.drossel (talk) 10:18, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Here is an interesting reference to blog of speech researching by Oleksandr Ishchenko. Notable: the same work of Totska is cited. --11:32, 8 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by W.M.drossel (talk • contribs)

• Formants are of course good thing, but how exactly do you get <о> as close-mid? It's just mid when stressed, and then it's basically stylistic choice. One symbol with undertack, or another symbol with uptack. --Drundia (talk) 22:51, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

O is close-mid cause its first formant is relative low. F1_Wiki:o=500 Hz, F1_Ishchenko:o=450±30 Hz. What is closer?

Actually, relative is the keyword. Ukrainian u is more open [u^ʊ], a is extra-back. So we have near o-u, far o↔a (a unrouned, of course), while someone (as stupid as me) thinks, that [ɔ]=[ʌ]≈[ɑ].

A question about e. Sign [ɛ̝] for е^и is genial! "More closed-open-mid"... One more problem is that [i] and [ɪ] are not just more closed - more open pair. The first is palatalized while the second is neutralized. (In fact softness of preceding consonant is more significant, than articulation of vowel himself). And there are two different [e̝]: soft(виллється [ʋɪlʲːe̝ t͡sʲːɑ̈]) and schwa (вилетить [ʋɪle̽̽tɪtʲ]).

--W.M.drossel (talk) 10:12, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Rather than look at the formants to decide which characters are best, we should use what is common in literature. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

F1 indeed correlates with vowel height, however logarithmic scale should be used because cardinal vowels are perceived as equidistant, and relative is indeed a keyword as different voices make different formants. Taking <і> and <а> as reference points we see near-close <и у>, mid <о>, mid-open <е>, which matches descriptions in literature.

/i/ and /ɪ/ are also said to be tense vs lax. Palatalization of labials, postalveolars and velars (also arguably for /r/ and alveolar sibilants) before [i] isn't quite noticeable, but /i/ retains its quality regardless of what it's preceded by (credited to tenseness), on the other hand /ɪ/ has a wider range of allophones. --Drundia (talk) 11:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, thank you, i'll be not so stupid. No IPA transcription of Ukrainian is wide common in literature, but the Drundia's referenced descriptions are quite correct. --W.M.drossel

But the second is wrong. Impossible labials and velars realy exist(/ʋ^ɥ/,/ɦ^ɣ/,/ɡ^ɟ/), and only befor i they do, they are called "softed" insteeed "soft" palatals. Lax allophone of i also exists (in words іржа, зіниця). --W.M.drossel (talk) 08:55, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

w

Why are we not using IPA for a bilabial approximant? Also isn't it a labio-dental approximant in some positions? I would prefer to use the labio-dental approximant symbol for that phoneme rather than [w] which is a labio-velar approximant. -iopq (talk) 09:23, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

From what I've seen (and I'll admit that it's not much), it varies between bilabial, labiodental, and labiovelar articulations depending on speaker and context. Do you have sourcing that clarifies the matter? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:35, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

From two different sources I've seen bilabial and labio-dental approximants. I was not aware of any material on it being a a labio-velar. Plus, the article itself claims it is bilabial while using a labio-velar symbol. See Zylins'kyj's book that is referenced on the page. -iopq (talk) 02:52, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Labio-velar is technically bilabial. But it's unreferenced here either way. What are the sources? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I can tell that our "local" linguistic tradition doesn't seem to distinguish them. It's not uncommon to see English <w> or Polish <ł> classified as "bilabial".

Also mind that it was you who started using /w/, giving reasons here: Zilyns'kyj is pretty clear about the consonant represented by <в>; while there is some variation, educated speakers pronounce it just like with Russian except after vowels when it is u̯. What he labels as a "bilabial articulation" he transcribes as w and says that it "cannot be precisely distinguished from u̯ either in its acoustics or its articulation." (p 81).

Spectrograms of Pohribnyy's speech (that was considered perfectly standard) don't show much difference between [w] and [u̯]. [w] is less intense, I guess it has a narrower channel between lips. They have about 100-200 Hz higher F2 than [u], so are likely less velar or less rounded, but not much. --Drundia (talk) 03:29, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

What is the source for using [w] for [B], it just appears to be...way off, to say the least.--Львівське (говорити) 15:54, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

"there is no doubt that {v} is part of the phonological system", another source (which gives 'voda' as an example for standard ukrainian, not 'woda', which is ironic considering the main article uses 'w=water'; "the strong position is identified with the beginning of the word or the syllable, i.e., the prevocalic position as in the case of, for example, the first consonant in Standard Ukrainian [vOda] voda ‘water’."--Львівське (говорити) 16:12, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

According to this chart, the current IPA is based on eastern ukrainian dialect, not standard ukrainian. It should be fixed. sourceЛьвівське (говорити) 19:47, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Your source shows w to occur in Standard Ukrainian. /w/ is how the phoneme is transcribed here; /w/ is not [w], e.g. він іде is phonemically transcribed /win idɛ/, but phonetically [ʋin idɛ]. We could change /w/ to be /v/ and it wouldn't really matter (except people might incorrectly think it patterns with /f/ at first). — Lfdder (talk) 20:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Voiceless retroflex affricate

I have a question for Ukranian speakers, if there is a Voiceless retroflex affricate Ukranian language. I do know Russian and Polish and when listening to ukrainian speech and songs i really do hear ʈ͡ʂ in it sometimes. Soshial (talk) 12:58, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

That's not a question Ukrainian speakers are really able to answer, since being a native speaker doesn't give one authority on the phonetic particularities of sounds (otherwise, we wouldn't have a bit of a dispute about the matter). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:14, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

That is not quite hard question to distinguish between ʈ͡ʂ and t̠͡ɕ. Maybe you can answer it, because i do hear the former sound in ukrainian speech. Soshial (talk) 10:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that sound is used in some dialects (lemkos). Ukrainian /tʃ/ is articulated with shifted back but not curled back tongue (unlike russian hard allophone of /tɕ/) and has some secondary palatal articulation ([tʃʷ] to [tʆ] but not [tɕ]). Anyway, t-component in /tʃ/ (as well as d in /dʒ/) is not dental but postalveolar stop.--W.M.drossel (talk) 09:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow, thanks -- you sound like a professional. But I was asking about ʈ͡ʂ. Thx for your help. Soshial (talk) 13:28, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

ɫ vs. l

I believe that ukrainian has the velarized ɫ as well, not just the pure l. Am I right? 84.179.17.158 (talk) 20:19, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised, but I'm not sure. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least I think I have heard it here [4] (the national anthem of Ukraine). Surely not the best source, so if there are ukarinians here... Kreuzkümmel (talk) 10:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

This isn't a question Ukrainians would be able to answer without authoritative sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:15, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

In literature it is said that the velarized ɫ is before non-front vowels. So before /и/ and /е/ you have normal l, but before /а/, /у/, /о/ it is velarized -iopq (talk) 05:17, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Differences from Russian?

I think it would be useful for linguists like me who have some knowledge of Russian phonology but not Ukrainian to explicitly state the differences. It would also help with issues that appear to be left out of this article. Can someone look over the following list? (I also notice that the page on Ukrainian grammar has a great deal on phonology, much of which is duplicated on this page and some of which augments this page.)

1. Stress. (Not mentioned here. Is it phonemic? Is it in the same position as Russian?)
2. Non-reduction of unstressed phonemes. (This I've heard about Ukrainian -- unlike in Russian, all vowel phonemes are still distinguished in unstressed position. Is this in fact true?)
3. Similarly, limited assimilation of adjacent consonants with different voicing.
4. No final devoicing (unlike Russian)? (Is this true?)
5. Different development of Proto-Slavic i, y, e, ě. i and y merged completely as /ɪ/, with depalatalization in the case of i (is this true?). On the other hand e and ě did not merge, with ě raising to /i/.
6. Evidently, different development of affricates w.r.t. palatalization, since /ts/ and /dz/ can be palatalized. This needs to be explained more.
7. /dz/ and /dʒ/ are phonemes, although not in Russian; this needs to be explained more.
8. /w/ vs. Russian /v/, /ɦ/ vs. Russian /g/.
9. Ukrainian gemination in many places where Russian would have a single consonant plus /j/. (Does Ukrainian have the distinction between palatalized consonant and consonant + /j/ that exists in Russian?)
10. Others?

Benwing (talk) 20:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

1. Mostly same as in Russian. Some Polish loans differ in stress.
2. It has reduction, but not the same way Russian has it. /и/ and /е/ may be indistinguishable when unstressed. The rest you can tell apart.
3. This is covered by this article, Ukrainian has regressive voicing, but not devoicing
4. No final devoicing.
5. Yes, *i and *y merged into /и/ which is under stress something like /ɪ/ and has no mandatory softening before it.
6. /dz/ is in some positions like дзеркало for phonetic purposes (so it's easier to distinguish з дзеркала from дзеркала) and in some other rare cases. /dʒ/ is usually a voiced version of /ч/ in words like бджола from P.Sl. *бъчела
7. These pronunciations are shared with Southern Russian dialects actually
8. C'C'a < *Cije as you can see in the Ukrainian grammar page. Ukrainian allows CjV sequences as well, and even encourages them for labials, м'ясо is pronounced /mjaso/ because m cannot be soft in Ukrainian.

-iopq (talk) 11:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

ʃ and ʒ sounds

There`s no such sounds in Ukrainian, there are retroflex sibilants ʂ and ʐ, similar to Russian and Belarusian languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.98.177.46 (talk) 08:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide a source that says as much? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 12:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I am not a phonologist and have no reference, but I listened to ʃ on Wikipedia and can say, this is not the Ukrainian ш. --Дядько Ігор (talk) 04:55, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

ɪ vs ɨ

In standart Ukrainian there's no sound /ɨ/. This sound is proper to Russian, Belarusian, Polish and Czech. Actually Ukrainian linguists make accent on this difference between Ukrainian and other Eastern/Western Slavic languages. For instance Oleksandr Ponomariv classifies typical Ukrainian И as front and close (like ɪ).

Also sound /ɕ/ appears in spoken Ukrainian only under influence of Russian language, standart sound is /ʈ͡ʂ/.--Dƶoxar (talk) 22:31, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

You know, "standard" is spelled with a "D": STANDARD. I see how competent you are. You know, they have a cool little thing called "SPELLCHECK". Use it. Back to the point, if 99.9% of the entire Ukrainian population realize И as [ɨ] (or rather [ɘ], that is almost identical to Polish "Y"), including people on national television, that should be a sign of the unwillingness to see the truth: those people (like Oleksandr Ponomariv) make up stuff so that Ukrainian and Russian seem "different" in phonology. They are, but please, there is a difference between patriotism and sheer madness. My sister is a teacher of Ukrainian, she has a degree in this. If you do not trust me, you can ask her. OR, there is a sample of [ɪ] on Wikipedia, listen to it and compare Ukrainian И with it. Also, [ɕ:] is a realization of /ʂʈ͡ʂ/, not /ʈ͡ʂ/. Also, NO ONE I've heard so far (literally) pronounce B like [w]. Period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wlad Sokolowskiy (talk • contribs) 12:07, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

If you are still not satisfied, I have a lot of books about Ukrainian phonology (in Ukrainian). I can send them to you.Wlad Sokolowskiy (talk) 12:15, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

It's [ɪ] by x-rays and spectrograms. As for Polish, a good question is "Why do they classify a vowel with F2 around 2000 Hz a middle one?" because it's F2 of a front or near-front vowel. Drundia (talk) 07:45, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Enough original research

In all honesty, I'm getting fed up with the amount of WP:OR that's infiltrated this page. What is needed is reliable sources, not opinions by those who do and don't speak Ukrainian. Either sources are found, or I'm going to start the ball rolling to scrap anything that is not supported by verifiable resources. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:39, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree. --Taivo (talk) 14:05, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

@Taivo:, in all seriousness, this page having become a hodgepodge of WP:OR is aggravating enough. More to the point, the content here has been inflicted on the Help:IPA for Ukrainian. Take a look at the single vowel equivalent 'u' as representing both у and ю: "No exact equivalent, like boot but further back, lips are more rounded and without gliding." What the...? Have we been getting input from a parallel universe where they've never heard a human language being spoken? There's only one pronunciation for у, and it doesn't resemble boot. Examples are drawn from Canadian English, American General and Spanish pronunciation! I'm ready to plant my boot into contributor's pooters! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:40, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Open vowel

This page on Ukrainian uses the symbol /ɑ/ for the open vowel, while the one on Russian uses /a/. Is there a reason for this? Is the Ukrainian open vowel actually back so that it sounds different from the central open vowel of Russian? If not, the symbols should be the same. — Eru·tuon 09:14, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Erutuon: It's an open vowel unless there are WP:RS stating otherwise (which would surprise me). There's been OR in abundance on this article. Please feel free to make changes. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:52, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy: Hmm, I wasn't very clear. I was asking whether the Ukrainian open vowel is back /ɑ/ or front or central /a/, not whether it's open. — Eru·tuon 03:13, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995:4) say it's open back unrounded. Peter238 (talk) 04:04, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Erutuon: Apologies for just dashing off a response without clarifying anything! The content in this instance is sourced and correct: it's entirely dependent on whether it is in a stressed or unstressed syllable, with unstressed as /ɑ/ and stressed as /a/. In this context, although I haven't had a chance to find the Ukrainian language source for the six phonemes, it strikes me as being WP:SYNTH. If you take a look at the Ukrainian Wikipedia entry here, there is no representation as only six (and I don't remember learning my vowels in that manner, but as multiple variants on phonemes). The representation is the same on Russian Wikipedia here. Yes, there are six vowels, but not merely six phonemes representing the vowels. Just in comparing, say, English phonology, Standard German phonology, etc. there's no oversimplification in stating that there are "six vowel phonemes". --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:35, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

You're mistaking phonemes for allophones. Danyenko & Vakulenko (1995) do say that Ukrainian has six vowel phonemes, and so does the Ukrainian Wikipedia. Peter238 (talk) 05:18, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

@Peter238: I realise you're highly proficient in this area, but the general problem is that these articles are being too technical for an encyclopaedic article. It's fine to elaborate on the difference in the article itself so that the average reader has an opportunity to get a grasp of such differences. There's WP:SYNTH, and there's WP:NOTSYNTH. Treating technical/specialised articles (unless they're medical, legal, etc.) as dry absolutes is not elucidating for readers. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 06:06, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy: I don't think I get your point. Peter238 (talk) 06:25, 5 December 2015 (UTC)

This is an article about Ukrainian phonology (and also phonetics). You must be mistaking it for Help:IPA for Ukrainian. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:33, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Pompino-Marschall, Steriopolo & Żygis (2016) say /a/ is wide-open central and this is also used in the chart linked in current revision. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 20:40, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Influence

"There are some typical deviations which may appear in spoken language..." Could this be an example of Surzhyk? If so, can you please provide references? — AWESOME meeos ！ * ([ˈjæb.ə ət məɪ])) 23:00, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

@Awesomemeeos: Surzhyk (and Trasianka on Belarus) refer much more to grammar and vocabulary than pronunciation. If you speak Ukrainian with a Russian accent (or hints thereof), you still speak Ukrainian. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:56, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Additional phonotactics

I added some extra details from the existing reference "Buk, Solomija; Mačutek, Ján; Rovenchak, Andrij (2008), Some properties of the Ukrainian writing system", which can be viewed here. However, I'm not a Ukrainian speaker, so I can't verify these details with a second reference, and I wouldn't even necessarily know where to start. My edits should probably be reviewed, in case there are errors in my wording or in the reference itself. - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:17, 15 September 2017 (UTC)